stray

People don't need to make their leisure time productive.

I'm glad stoners are so eco-conscious that they're not wasting plastic on packaging.

And they never had control over what art other people are able to see.

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not prevented from seeing genuine human art.

The issue is if we let this keep going then within 10 years 99.99% of all art ever will be ai trash and you will not see original art, since it will be blotted out with the spam.

I don't think that will be the case. We have machines that make us clothing and such, but hand-crafted goods are admired for their artistry, and those who can afford them will happily pay a premium.

Over 50 games were released daily on Steam in 2024, but we still found the great titles by word of mouth, reviews, and awards.

Maybe a lot of "art" will be generated, but I think not being able to copyright AI works will make corporations prefer human-made art so that they'll have a monopoly over the rights. I think it's more the case that generated assets will replace/broaden stock assets.

I know when I say art you just see dollar signs

What makes you say that?

it has to steal from artists in its training data

One of the reasons I don't have a burning hated for AI art is because I can't see a difference between what it generates and what I generate. I also steal from artists in my training data, be it watching a tutorial or using references. A seemingly original idea like a cat drinking tea on the moon is really just combining every Victorian tea party painting I've ever seen, every cat I've ever seen, real or drawn, and every depiction of the moon I've ever seen. Anything I can imagine comes from stimuli previously consumed and techniques taught by others.

People have always spammed lazy art, and we probably always will. Ancient runes boil down to "So-and-so was here," and we post countless images with text slapped on them every day. Most books are lazy, most TV shows are lazy, most songs are lazy. We mostly pay attention to the good ones, and the rest is background noise.

But what if more people learn about anti-capitalist sentiment, and it begins to become more popular? I'm sure people thought the monarchy wasn't going anywhere.

That's very interesting, thank you. Do you include non-human minds? I assume a Roomba detecting an obstacle doesn't count because it doesn't have a meaningful internal reaction, right? I'm thinking about a future iteration of AI experiencing art, either via creation or observation. If nature has programmed my mindless cells to feel things, it stands to reason that we should be able to program mindless rocks to feel things.

What if a blind person draws something to the best of their ability, but keeps the image in a private journal where no sighted person ever experiences it? (For the purposes of this hypothetical, they haven't used a marking method that allows them to experience their creation via texture.)

That's a view I haven't heard before, that art is in the eye of the beholder in a very literal way, so that even an ordinary rock can itself be art if it causes someone to feel a certain way. That's not in accordance with the current dictionary definition of art, but it's certainly valid to argue that the definition should be broadened.

Elephant paintings are a perfect subject for the question of what art is, and I'll edit my previous post to reflect that.

This is an interesting topic to me. If I paint a landscape, I think most people would say that's art. What if I close my eyes and splash random paints at a canvas? What if I encourage my cat to track paint over the canvas with its paws? What if it's a robotic toy instead of a cat? If I create a program like Minecraft to produce aesthetically-pleasing vistas, is that art? Is a swallow's nest art? What if I physically do the painting, but I allow a random number generator to dictate my actions?

e: Elephants that paint recognizable objects were trained to do so by their handlers. When given access to paint and a canvas, elephants will happily smear the paint around with no apparent logic behind it. No non-human animal has been recorded reproducing an object visually of their own compulsion. Are the random paint smears of the elephant art? If I teach an elephant to paint a house, is that painting art? Who is the artist?

How do you explain the vast wealth of free software and entertainment media created by both professionals and hobbyists alike? How do you explain the profitability of games and movies when any of us can pirate a copy with little effort? Why is it possible to sell copies of public domain books when we have libraries?

I get what you're saying, but if we sequester ourselves to niche spaces, how can we spread information? Isn't it important to reach Facebook users?

The idea is to break up these corporations, not just have them trade assets.